Stars and Bars RestorationIf you've read any of our other posts on IICRC certifications, you know we're a little particular about this topic — mostly because we think homeowners get sold a lot of vague "certified" language without anyone explaining what it actually means. So here's another one: FSRT, which stands for Fire and Smoke Restoration Technician. It's a narrower, less common certification than WRT or even AMRT, and it's the one that specifically applies to what happens after a house fire — not the water damage that often follows it, but the fire and smoke damage itself.
What FSRT Actually Trains For
FSRT certification comes from the IICRC (Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification), the same body behind WRT (water damage), ASD (applied structural drying), and AMRT (mold remediation). The FSRT course is built around IICRC's S700 Standard for Professional Fire and Smoke Damage Restoration, and it covers a set of skills that are genuinely different from water or mold work:
Soot and residue identification. Not all smoke damage looks or behaves the same. A kitchen grease fire leaves a different residue than a synthetic-material house fire, and a wildfire-driven structure fire with heavy ash intrusion is different again. FSRT training covers how to identify residue types and match the cleaning method to the specific residue — because using the wrong method can actually set soot into a surface instead of removing it.
Odor control chemistry. Smoke odor isn't sitting on the surface of things — it's often absorbed into porous materials at a molecular level. FSRT covers the science behind why smoke odor lingers (and why air fresheners and ozone machines alone usually don't fix it), along with proper deodorization techniques like thermal fogging and hydroxyl treatment.
Structural and content cleaning sequencing. After a fire, there's a right order to work in — assessing structural safety, controlling further contamination, cleaning hard surfaces, treating HVAC systems that circulated smoke through the whole house, and handling contents (furniture, clothing, electronics) that may be salvageable with the right cleaning approach versus a total loss.
Health and safety protocols. Fire damage often comes with real hazards beyond the obvious — soot can carry toxic particulates depending on what burned, structural components can be weakened by heat even when they look intact, and standing water from firefighting efforts creates its own secondary damage risk. FSRT training covers how to assess and work safely around all of that.
Why This Certification Is Less Common
Water damage restoration (WRT) is the certification almost every restoration company has, because water damage is the most common call type in the industry. FSRT is rarer simply because fire and smoke restoration is a smaller, more specialized slice of the work — and it requires its own dedicated training rather than being an extension of water damage skills. A technician who's great at extracting water and drying out a crawl space isn't automatically equipped to know whether upholstery exposed to smoke can be salvaged or whether soot residue needs a dry-cleaning sponge versus a solvent-based approach.
Here at Stars and Bars, our owner Robert Hewett holds FSRT certification alongside WRT, AMRT, ASD, and OCT (Odor Control) — five active IICRC certifications, verified current through January 2027. That combination matters because fire damage jobs almost never involve just fire: there's usually water from firefighting efforts, sometimes mold if the structure sat wet afterward, and always an odor problem that needs its own specific treatment. Having WRT, ASD, and FSRT under one roof means we're not calling in a different specialist for each phase of a fire recovery job.
A Real Example of Why the Distinction Matters
We've walked into homes after a fire where a well-meaning family member or a general cleaning crew already tried to wipe down soot-covered walls with regular household cleaner. In a lot of cases, that actually makes things worse — wiping dry soot with a wet cloth or the wrong cleaner can smear the residue deeper into paint, drywall, or upholstery instead of lifting it off, turning a surface-level cleaning job into a "this now needs to be repainted or replaced" job. FSRT training exists specifically to prevent that kind of mistake: knowing which residue you're dealing with before you touch it, not after.
The same goes for odor. We've had customers tell us they ran fans and used store-bought odor sprays for weeks after a fire before calling anyone, and the smell kept coming back because it was never actually gone — it was masked temporarily and then re-emerged as heat and humidity in the house changed. Real deodorization, the kind FSRT covers, treats the source of the odor rather than covering it up.
What This Means If You've Had a Fire
If you're vetting a restoration company after a house fire — whether it's from a kitchen accident, an electrical issue, or wildfire exposure like what southern Colorado has seen with the Aspen Acres Fire this summer — it's worth asking directly whether the crew coming to your house holds FSRT, not just a general "restoration certified" claim. You can verify any IICRC certification by asking for the technician's registration number and checking it against the IICRC's public registry. We covered how to vet a company more generally in our questions to ask before hiring a restoration company post, and we still think that's the right first step no matter who you're considering.
The other thing we'd tell you: don't wait to make that call. Fire damage sitting in a house — especially soot residue and lingering odor — gets harder to remove the longer it sits, particularly once humidity or a subsequent rainstorm sets residue further into surfaces. If your home has had firefighting water added to the mix, you're now also racing the clock on secondary water damage and mold growth, which is exactly the kind of overlapping problem we talked about in our what to do after a house fire guide.
We're Here, Certified, and Local
Stars and Bars Restoration is based in Colorado City and serves families across southern Colorado, including Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Cañon City, and Trinidad. We're IICRC certified — including FSRT — and veteran-owned, and we answer our own phone 24/7. If you've had a fire, don't wait to figure out who to call: reach us at (719) 676-2456 and we'll walk you through what needs to happen first. For an active fire aftermath or any restoration emergency, that same number, (719) 676-2456, connects you to a real person any time, day or night.